I imagine him getting up early to makehis own coffee. Reading the papers. No plans for the day. Turning on the radioa little louder than it has to be. Alone at home. Then the phone rings, he answers it, finds me on the line. His son, a grown man now, calling from another country, increasingly distant, more and more a stranger; The call, cheering him up, nonetheless.He says, “How are you? How’s everything?” He really wants to know. He is my father, after all. He is growing old. But I don’t know where to start. I want to tell him that I love him and that I’m sorry I have to live my own life now. But these are not the things I know how to say from a distance. These are things I know I may never learn to say. So we speak of smaller daily things, and soon this brief connection will unmake itself, and expire.